Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday proposed giving New Yorkers a train to the planes of LaGuardia by building an AirTrain from the No. 7 subway at Willets Point. He said it would cost $450 million for the 1.5-mile journey. It’s unclear how many miles of track that would include. The AirTrain at John F. Kennedy International Airport cost $1.9 billion to build more than a decade ago. That included 8.1 miles of track: a 1.8-mile loop in the airport, a 3.3-mile segment to Howard Beach station, and a 3-mile run to the Jamaica LIRR station. An express bus to LaGuardia already exists. The Q70 was introduced last year to ferry passengers from the 61st Street-Woodside and the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue subway stations. Trip times to LaGuardia average around 10 to 15 minutes on the express bus, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Continue reading →

In the lead-up to state budget negotiations, an analysis released Friday by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said that the city has been shortchanged by Albany for years, and this year’s surplus is an opportunity to make amends. The city has 43% of the state’s population, contributes 46% of its personal income-tax revenue and generates 43% of sales-tax revenue. Mr. Stringer calculates the city is due at least $2.2 billion of the $5 billion budget surplus generated by bank settlement funds. Continue reading →

Senate Republicans this week proposed legislation to halt the transfer of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba. The move was an attempt to curb the president’s recent efforts to release prisoners and cut Gitmo’s population to about 80 from more than 600 in 2003. That would make it cost-prohibitive to keep it open, allowing Mr. Obama to make good on a campaign promise. Continue reading →

Former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is the latest to state that Mayor Bill de Blasio should apologize to the police. “I think the mayor has to give something,” he said. “He has to, you know, sort of make amends.” Tension between the mayor and New York’s Finest have been strained since a grand jury decided not to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, on Staten Island. At the time, the mayor voiced a feeling common in minority communities, saying he worried about keeping his son, who is black, safe not just from “crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods” but also “from the very people [residents] want to have faith in as their protectors.” The rift grew further when two police officers were killed in their patrol car in a revenge scheme. Continue reading →

On Monday senior Wall Street banker Antonio Weiss withdrew his name for consideration by the U.S. Senate to be the Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance. The opposition, led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, insisted that he would be the wrong man to lead the implementation of new Dodd-Frank rules to rein in the banks. The administration quickly said it will instead make Mr. Weiss a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who praised the banker for his “tremendous expertise and shared passion for helping working families.” Continue reading →

The Cuomo administration famously invested $1 billion in an effort to revive the city of Buffalo, which has lost most of its population since 1950. The state has also plunged $1 billion into the nanotech sector in Albany. Now Rochester and other upstate cities are seeking a “Buffalo billion” of their own from the governor. In a recent 12-month period, 154,000 more people moved out of New York state than moved in, despite population gains in New York City. Global economic forces have eviscerated upstate’s manufacturing base, but the area’s brutal winter weather remains. Continue reading →

Last week, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said that the state does not violate constitutional rights by requiring children to be vaccinated before attending public school. The three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected claims that the state’s law was discriminatory or violated the constitutional right of religious freedom. The panel also upheld a regulation that lets school officials temporarily bar kids who are exempt from the vaccination requirement for religious reasons when there is an outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases. The case involved two non-vaccinated kids who were not allowed to attend school when another student was diagnosed with chicken pox. Continue reading →

On Thursday, city officials announced a ban on plastic-foam food containers. It also includes the sale of packing peanuts within New York City, although out-of-town shippers can still use foam in packages shipped here. The prohibition would take effect July 1. The food-container ban is the result of a law passed in 2013, backed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The city decided not to try a pilot recycling program for plastic foam, which the industry had offered to subsidize on a temporary basis. Last year, the city collected 30,000 tons of the material.

A City Council bill introduced Wednesday would create a letter-grading system for salons and similar shops. Bronx Borough President Rubén Diaz Jr. and Councilman Rafael Espinal introduced the bill that would create letter grades for cosmetology businesses, such as nail salons, spas, barber shops and beauty parlors. Mr. Diaz said there have been too many cases of businesses that have unsafe conditions or poorly trained employees, and as a result, customers suffer serious health risks like infections. A report released last September by New York City Public Advocate Letitia Jamescalled for more inspections, a safety study and better education for nail salon workers. The report found that there are only 27 nail salon safety inspectors in the entire state of New York. According to Ms. James, more than half of the 2,000 nail salons in New York City violated health laws from 2008 to 2012. Continue reading →

Crime data show that the Police Department has seen a work slowdown since the death of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on Dec. 20. In the past week, the number of criminal summonses issued dropped to 347 from 4,077 a year earlier. The number of parking tickets plummeted 90%. The drop in enforcement has underscored the ill will some police have shown toward Mayor Bill de Blasio. Police say they are responding as usual to emergency calls even if the data show that minor offenses are not being ticketed. The stoppage has given what some protesters have long clamored for: a halt, even if it is temporary, of the broken windows policing that is supported by the mayor but that focuses on the enforcement of minor infractions that critics say does more to alienate communities of color than to keep them safe. Continue reading →